Minnesota Democrats will control the governorship and both houses of the Legislature next year for the first time in 22 years, but don't expect them to make radical changes in state policy -- at least not in the immediate future.

Gov. Mark Dayton and the leaders of the new Democratic-Farmer-Labor majorities in the House and Senate struck a moderate tone Wednesday, Nov. 7, after sweeping the Republicans out of power in a surprising landslide election the previous day.

They did not promise to tax the rich, shower more money on schools or legalize same-sex marriage, as Republicans had warned.

At a Capitol news conference, Dayton said he and the DFL lawmakers would take time to carefully formulate policy proposals they agree on before laying out their agenda for next year.

"It's time for all of us to pull together and say we're all Minnesotans," he said.

In a victory that was not unexpected, DFLers picked up nine additional seats in the Senate, giving them a 39-28 majority.

The big bombshell was the DFL's 11-seat pickup in the House. They will outnumber Republicans 73 to 61 in that chamber when the Legislature convenes in January.

Two years ago, Republicans took control of both houses for the first time since 1972. But they were ousted on a record night at the polls, apparently by voters supporting President Barack Obama and opposing two constitutional amendments that Republicans put on the ballot, one to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman and another to require voters to produce photo IDs.

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Some 2.9 million Minnesotans voted Tuesday, which was about 76 percent of the state's eligible voters, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said.

House Speaker Kurt Zellers, R-Maple Grove, said Republicans were surprised by the big turnout for the Democratic president, which he called a national phenomenon. He wouldn't second-guess GOP lawmakers' decision to put the amendments on the ballot, but he acknowledged they were factors that contributed to their loss.

House Majority Leader Matt Dean, R-Dellwood, predicted the DFL takeover would mean tax increases, especially for business, and more regulation.

But Dayton, who campaigned in 2010 on a promise to make the wealthiest Minnesotans pay their "fair share" of taxes, avoided renewing has call for a tax increase, saying he hasn't decided on what tax and spending ideas he'll propose and won't until he sees a new state economic forecast next month.

When asked if he was abandoning his campaign pledge to require the wealthy to pay the same share of their incomes on state and local taxes as the middle class, he said no. "For me that's not a slogan. That's a conviction."

He plans to propose a comprehensive overhaul of the state's tax system in January.

He may, however, have trouble selling tax increases to the new DFL lawmakers. Most of them appear to be pro-business fiscal moderates from suburban and rural districts.

The 27 new House DFLers will take a "practical, problem-solving approach," said House Minority Leader Paul Thissen, a Minneapolis DFLer who is likely to be the next House speaker.

He said Democrats want a "fairer, simpler tax system" but didn't spell out what that means.

With the state facing a projected $1.1 billion budget shortfall over the next two years, he said, "Our first and foremost job is to balance the budget" and do it in a way that gets the state off the surplus-to-deficit roller coaster it has been on for the last 10 years.

Senate Minority Leader Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, agreed that balancing the budget comes first and will require a "difficult conversation" about spending cuts and tax changes. He said money problems will overshadow policy initiatives, such as legalizing gay marriage, which remains prohibited by existing state statute.

"I think that anybody who has policy ideas needs to find a way to put them on the back shelf right now. This state has serious financial challenges," Bakk said.

While Republican leaders blamed their loss on a large voter turnout that extended the state's streak of voting Democratic to 10 consecutive presidential elections -- the longest in the nation -- DFL leaders said GOP lawmakers' unwillingness to compromise with Dayton led to legislative logjams and a government shutdown last year that undermined their ability to portray themselves as bipartisan problem solvers.

"People want us move away from roadblock and gridlock," Thissen said.

Before the election, Dayton said the election was a choice between "gridlock versus progress." Now the governor thinks he can work with a DFL-controlled legislation to create jobs, make taxes fairer, improve education and streamline state government.

DFLers won control by unseating several first-term suburban Republicans, including Sens. Ted Daley of Eagan, Ted Lillie of Woodbury, Pam Wolf of Spring Lake Park and Benjamin Kruse of Brooklyn Center.

They scored a trifecta in Eagan. In addition to defeating Daley, they dislodged freshman Reps. Diane Anderson and Doug Wardlow.

Democrats won an open Senate seat in Republican-leaning Apple Valley, took back a House seat in the Cottage Grove-Newport-South St. Paul area, made a clean sweep of three open House seats in northern Ramsey County and also picked up open House seats in Woodbury and a Lakeville-Burnsville district.

In addition, DFLers won all four House and Senate seats in west-central and northwestern Minnesota where incumbents were paired against each other by redistricting.

And they picked up seats in greater Minnesota regional centers including Moorhead, Northfield, Owatonna, Red Wing and St. Cloud.